How much did the Pope know?

[Zatzat]

Canada’s largest national news magazine, Macleans cover story. April 6, 2010

How much did the Pope know?
Benedict faces tough questions about the Church’s sex abuse scandal

"…“Is this an all-time low? Absolutely,” says John Swales, a London, Ont., man who, starting at the age of 10, was repeatedly assaulted by a local priest. “The leadership is horrific. I have lost total faith in their ability to do anything with decency. How can anyone be held accountable when the Pope is not held accountable?”

Two decisions in particular—now public after so many years—have come back to haunt His Eminence, threatening to shatter his image as a no-nonsense disciplinarian and raising fresh questions about his possible role in a Vatican-wide cover-up. "

 

[Lutheranteach]

Well that is the million dollar question at the moment.

 

[Canto]

Originally cases were bought to the attention of the Congregation for Clergy not the CDF headed by Benedict. The CDF were only informed if solictation in the confessional was alleged. A few years ago the CDF took over fro the CFClergy and Benedict was active in stamping out child abuse and put forth many new measures and his work continues to this day.

His record is clear. He has done more than anyone in the Church to stamp out abuse. What have his critics done to stop this global, societal wide cancer??? All the allegations against him have fizzled including the NYtimes article where their slander was reliant on a translated CDF document - the translation was made using yahoo translator, I kid you not. Nice to know the times has such high journalistic standards.

 

[SunnaB16]

Canada’s largest national news magazine, Macleans cover story. April 6, 2010

How much did the Pope know?
Benedict faces tough questions about the Church’s sex abuse scandal

"…“Is this an all-time low? Absolutely,” says John Swales, a London, Ont., man who, starting at the age of 10, was repeatedly assaulted by a local priest. “The leadership is horrific. I have lost total faith in their ability to do anything with decency. How can anyone be held accountable when the Pope is not held accountable?”

Two decisions in particular—now public after so many years—have come back to haunt His Eminence, threatening to shatter his image as a no-nonsense disciplinarian and raising fresh questions about his possible role in a Vatican-wide cover-up. "

It looks like you and the baying hounds of the “news” media know more than the Pope does.
Youre not going to win, though. Itll take more rhan slimy, slanderous lies from the gutter press to destroy the Church. Her enemies have been trying to do it for almost 2,000 years.
If you and the rest are waiting to satisfy your blood lust…you`ll have to go elsewhere.

You`re not interested in the truth are you?.. just Catholic-bashing.

.

 

[Zatzat]

It looks like you and the baying hounds of the “news” media know more than the Pope does.
Youre not going to win, though. Itll take more rhan slimy, slanderous lies from the gutter press to destroy the Church. Her enemies have been trying to do it for almost 2,000 years.
If you and the rest are waiting to satisfy your blood lust…you`ll have to go elsewhere.

You`re not interested in the truth are you?.. just Catholic-bashing.

.

Your response is to suggest that this is yet another story from a ’ slimy, slanderous…gutter press ‘, a story filled with ’ slanderous lies ’ and all to ’ destroy the Church’?

I’m left wondering if you actually read the cover story? You ask me if I’m interested in the truth? Yes I am.

I ask you, did you read the entire story or did you draw your critical conclusion without having read the story?

Perhaps the most balanced accounting of facts that I’ve yet to come across.

…the Vatican finally cracked the doctrinal whip in a meaningful way. Appalled by the files that did cross his desk, Ratzinger sent a letter to all bishops, ordering them to forward every allegation, new or old, to his office.

Some have since characterized the letter as a smoking gun, proof that Ratzinger and the Vatican were conspiring to hide embarrassing details from police and the press. **In truth, the document was a monumental step for a Church **that had failed to do the moral thing for so long. For the first time, the Holy See acknowledged just how deep the rot ran, and committed itself to punishing the guilty.

Nowhere in that letter were bishops—or victims—forbidden from reporting crimes to authorities. In fact, Canadian bishops already had a decade-old policy that compelled the Church to phone police at the first whiff of wrongdoing.

How can one present uncomfortable facts or questions about past events in any meaningful way if people are so quick to dismiss them as slanderous lies by a gutter press?

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I was channel surfing and happened upon Father Mitch Pacwa on EWTN where he has a program focused on the encyclicals of Pope John Paul II.

But at the beginning of the show, he comments on current events. And he gave a fabulous discussion of the scandal in the papers where they are trying to link Pope Benedict XVI to the sex scandals.

It’s basically that the Church back then had relieved the priest of his duties and were proceeding to “defrock” him. They had also sent him for counseling, which was the professionally recommended course of action at the time [later found to be a waste of time.] The priest said he was dying and requested to be allowed to die as a priest, which he did a couple of months later.

Important: visit EWTN and record Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s program: “Threshold of Hope”.

I posted a lengthy article on this specific subject that went into a lot of detail, but that thread was closed.

Go here and read posts #39 and #41:

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=6480820#post6480820

It’s important to read Weigel’s article and the rest of the material that goes into a lot of detail.

In addition, there is the issue of the Seal of Confession. If a priest confesses that he did these terrible things, the confessor is not permitted to say anything. If the penitent does not report himself, then action is moot until someone else comes forward.

 

[markeverett49]

The claim that “Benedict has done more than anyone else” in this regard is far from a ringing endorsement—he sat on letter from the bishop of Oakland for FOUR YEARS before responding, and when he answered, he wanted to delay things further. The man’s bishop wanted him laicized. The man had already pled guilty to molesting boys. There was no doubt about any of that. But the Cardinal thought it would be a BIGGER scandal for a young priest to be laicized than for a child molestor to be defrocked. I bet he doesn’t think that way now!

He deserves these sufferings as he brought them on himself by placing the safety of children below the reputation of a guilty priest. Anyone who thinks that is how Jesus would handle things is bonkers.

 

[Seno_Ryan]

The claim that “Benedict has done more than anyone else” in this regard is far from a ringing endorsement—he sat on letter from the bishop of Oakland for FOUR YEARS before responding, and when he answered, he wanted to delay things further. The man’s bishop wanted him laicized. The man had already pled guilty to molesting boys. There was no doubt about any of that. But the Cardinal thought it would be a BIGGER scandal for a young priest to be laicized than for a child molestor to be defrocked. I bet he doesn’t think that way now!

He deserves these sufferings as he brought them on himself by placing the safety of children below the reputation of a guilty priest. Anyone who thinks that is how Jesus would handle things is bonkers.

One of the memebrs of CAF (Zab) had sent this in another thread.
it seems that the initial intepretation of the letter may have taken out of context by the media.
Here is a response to that topic from Jesuit Fr. Joseph Fessio :
insightscoop.typepad.com/2004…fessio-sj.html

insightscoop.typepad.com/2004…fessio-sj.html
We should not jump on the bandwagon of the media so quickly. We should have all of the facts of any incident first before making allegations against someone.

 

[RobbyS]

Your response is to suggest that this is yet another story from a ’ slimy, slanderous…gutter press ‘, a story filled with ’ slanderous lies ’ and all to ’ destroy the Church’?

I’m left wondering if you actually read the cover story? You ask me if I’m interested in the truth? Yes I am.

I ask you, did you read the entire story or did you draw your critical conclusion without having read the story?

Perhaps the most balanced accounting of facts that I’ve yet to come across.

How can one present uncomfortable facts or questions about past events in any meaningful way if people are so quick to dismiss them as slanderous lies by a gutter press?

Not many people even in the Church are aware of the structure of the Church, of the virtual independence of bishops within their sees, or of the religious orders of the bishops? Or the ridiculousness of an expectation that a small bureaucracy in Rome should have close knowledge of what happens of the affairs of parishes scattered around the world. So loose is the organization of the Church that the pope or even the “department” heads in the Vatican is less to know what is going on in a given chancellory than the Chief Justice of the United States us to know what is going on in a federal district court.

 

[Canto]

The claim that “Benedict has done more than anyone else” in this regard is far from a ringing endorsement—he sat on letter from the bishop of Oakland for FOUR YEARS before responding, and when he answered, he wanted to delay things further. The man’s bishop wanted him laicized. The man had already pled guilty to molesting boys. There was no doubt about any of that. But the Cardinal thought it would be a BIGGER scandal for a young priest to be laicized than for a child molestor to be defrocked. I bet he doesn’t think that way now!

He deserves these sufferings as he brought them on himself by placing the safety of children below the reputation of a guilty priest. Anyone who thinks that is how Jesus would handle things is bonkers.

This is false and the ‘evidence’ is flimsy. The Bishop doesn’t even recall writing such a letter and after careful investigation the priest was laicised. Did the police throw him in prison?

It was the Bishop’s responsibilty to deal with the priest not a small Vatican dept. At the time Benedict’s dept only dealt with cases of solicitation in the confessional and not abuse in general.

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I don’t know how much Benedict knew, or didn’t know, or very much of the details of the whole thing. By the time various interested parties have all put their slant on things, for or against Benedict and the Catholic Church, the truth would require an independent investigation.

What is clear is that there were a number of cover-ups, in America, in Ireland, and in other places at well.

However while in one sense “the buck stops at the Vatican”, issues like this should be handled by the local bishop and he should be the one who takes the responsibility for such events. The bishops appoint the priests, they know the people themselves and should therefore be responsible for disciplinary matters, including legal action if necessary.

This means in the end that the bishops should receive even greater power, and at the same time, moral and legal responsibility and accountability, for how they deal with such clerical abuses.

It is unrealistic to expect the Pope to know exactly what each and every priest is doing in a church with a membership of a billion people.

What’s going to happen when we start exploring the Solar System, then the Milky Way etc? And I think we will. I personally suspect God is going to drive us off the planet, and I think He’s allowed for the use of Quantum Teleportation as the means of transit down the track.

Responsibility will have to be devolved downwards. There won’t be any other way to deal with it.

 

[ConfusedTim]

The comments posted below appeared on a blog site for the Daily Telegraph which is an English newspaper. It struck me that the comments are so true: basically what it the author is saying is that the Catholic church (people) is basically seeing through the attack on the pope for what it is.

PS i dont count in the church the people who have suddenly appeared on this site who purport to be Catholic but when you look at all their posts they only ever endorse the media’s viewpoint - you know who they are…

---

“I think our Holy Father will emerge….”

I think so too. So far, it is an overwhelming attack on the part of the press, especially the most liberal elements in that press. They are simply lethal. The polls taken, which show the pope’s popularity plummeting in the US, are based on the negative press reports the respondants are fed. No objectivity.

All very interesting.

However, among the close to 70 million rank and file Catholic people in the States, you hear nothing, collectively. Nada, nada (i.e., Spanish for “nothing). None of the presidents of the 240 Catholic Universities and colleges, for example, are criticizing the pope, none of the Congressmen and women (Catholics make up 35% of Congress)are critical, none of the Justices of the Supreme Court (seven out of nine are Catholic, ioncluding the Chief Justice), no head of the hundreds of religious Orders are criticizing the pope, none of the Catholic CEO’s of major hospital health care organizations are, etc. And if anything, the pope is getting support from politicians.

All the negativity is coming from the reporters of certain presses (and their allies in arms) who want to see the pope figuratively put to death. Like members of an unauthorized group that takes on itself such powers as pursuing and punishing those suspected of being offenders, vigilantes, they all have their cartridges beside their chairs and are firing. Maybe I should say their noose. They are real vigilantes in that regard, only instead of looking for some bandit’s neck, they are looking for the Holy Father’s.

The pope will go to Malta soon, then to Cyprus; whether he cancels his trip to the UK (because of a “cold”), remains to be seen. The new President of Chile just invited him to Chile with open arms. Maybe he will go to a warmer Catholic climate instead.

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100033774/journalists-abandon-standards-to-attack-the-pope-you-can-say-that-again/

 

[SunnaB16]

Your response is to suggest that this is yet another story from a ’ slimy, slanderous…gutter press ‘, a story filled with ’ slanderous lies ’ and all to ’ destroy the Church’?

Well: as already stated, the Churchs enemies (INTERNAL, as well as external) have been at it for about 1,980 years. By internal, i mean fallen priests and bishops etc. Judas was the first traitor; but he wasnt the last. And his clones are out in force right now. So don`t get me wrong: one abusive cleric is one too many; and one cover up is one too many. But this blood lust…against one man…

You ask me if I’m interested in the truth? Yes I am.

You refer to yourself as an enquirer, and theres nothing wrong with that (As if there would be!). But, going by the tone of your posts on CAF, you display more than a small amount of belligerent hostility towards, and contemp for, all things Catholic. Your OP here isnt the first one of yours that ive come across. Maybe its not intended that way?
Let`s put it this way: if you were to sue me for calling you a Catholic-basher, your posts here would have to be overwhelming evidence to support my case.

I ask you, did you read the entire story or did you draw your critical conclusion without having read the story?

There`s enough innuendo in the first 2+ pages of that article to swamp the last couple of paragraphs. Hurl enough mud, and some of it will have to stick.

How can one present uncomfortable facts or questions about past events in any meaningful way if people are so quick to dismiss them as slanderous lies by a gutter press?

That`s easy enough, considering the discredited tripe spewed out by The New York Times and like-minded outfits, including our very own Sydney Morning Herald. Facts are one thing: outright bl**dy lies are something else!

Have you read the Sherlock Holmes short story titled “Charles Augustus Milverton”? There`s a parallel with what the “news” media are doing.

 

[OriginalJS]

People love to read about scandals, and the Church has been providing a lot of fodder for them for some years now. But, I believe most people know that media reports are not, and cannot be, deeply researched and scholarly and that it will take winnowing by lawsuits and investigative scholars of various stripes to reach reasonable, supportable, conclusions as to what happened, to whom, by whom, and when. In most lawsuits, once the hype of plaintiffs’ advocates has to meet standards of proof and the defense gets its turn to present its case, things that were made to appear black and white suddenly metamorphose into shades of gray as the “rest of the story” emerges.

 

[Ocarm]

This means in the end that the bishops should receive even greater power, and at the same time, moral and legal responsibility and accountability, for how they deal with such clerical abuses.

Which is, of course, the way the church has functioned for most of its 2000 year history. The centralisation of day-to-day running of particular churches i.e. dioceses is a modern phenomenon, really only gathering pace in the 19th century and being extended in the age of mass communication (it wasn’t easy to enforce universal change when the only way of transmitting messages was by an emissary on a donkey).

Part of this local management was manifested in the election of bishops by the members of the diocese rather than by the Vatican; the papal right even to confirm bishops - let alone select them - was not established until the 16th century. I think I’m right in saying that the ability to appoint all bishops was not granted to the pope until the promulgation of the 1917 Code of Canon Law. For people who might think that democracy and the church established by Christ do not sit easily together, think of the potential benefits in ensuring that each bishop properly represents the interests and needs of his constituents.

It is unrealistic to expect the Pope to know exactly what each and every priest is doing in a church with a membership of a billion people.

I agree. There needs to be a scaling down of Vatican oversight to key matters only, and greater use of episcopal mandates (including powers of dispensation) to ensure a locally responsive church and a clear point at which the buck stops.

Unfortunately, and in many ways unfairly, the Holy Father should not be too surprised at the manner in which he is made personally responsible for the ills of the church when we consider how centralised and pyramidal the church has become not only in the last couple of centuries, but very specifically during the current and preceding administrations, in both of which he has obviously played a major role. He has the power to reverse this recent trend, and I pray that he does, for his own benefit amongst those of others.

 

[anode]

The comments posted below appeared on a blog site for the Daily Telegraph which is an English newspaper. It struck me that the comments are so true: basically what it the author is saying is that the Catholic church (people) is basically seeing through the attack on the pope for what it is.

PS i dont count in the church the people who have suddenly appeared on this site who purport to be Catholic but when you look at all their posts they only ever endorse the media’s viewpoint - you know who they are…

---

“I think our Holy Father will emerge….”

I think so too. So far, it is an overwhelming attack on the part of the press, especially the most liberal elements in that press. They are simply lethal. The polls taken, which show the pope’s popularity plummeting in the US, are based on the negative press reports the respondants are fed. No objectivity.

All very interesting.

However, among the close to 70 million rank and file Catholic people in the States, you hear nothing, collectively. Nada, nada (i.e., Spanish for “nothing). None of the presidents of the 240 Catholic Universities and colleges, for example, are criticizing the pope, none of the Congressmen and women (Catholics make up 35% of Congress)are critical, none of the Justices of the Supreme Court (seven out of nine are Catholic, ioncluding the Chief Justice), no head of the hundreds of religious Orders are criticizing the pope, none of the Catholic CEO’s of major hospital health care organizations are, etc. And if anything, the pope is getting support from politicians.

All the negativity is coming from the reporters of certain presses (and their allies in arms) who want to see the pope figuratively put to death. Like members of an unauthorized group that takes on itself such powers as pursuing and punishing those suspected of being offenders, vigilantes, they all have their cartridges beside their chairs and are firing. Maybe I should say their noose. They are real vigilantes in that regard, only instead of looking for some bandit’s neck, they are looking for the Holy Father’s.

The pope will go to Malta soon, then to Cyprus; whether he cancels his trip to the UK (because of a “cold”), remains to be seen. The new President of Chile just invited him to Chile with open arms. Maybe he will go to a warmer Catholic climate instead.

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100033774/journalists-abandon-standards-to-attack-the-pope-you-can-say-that-again/

Catholics in official positions or who hold positions in Catholic organizations have a lot to lose by criticizing the church openly. But I will bet that a LOT of Catholics are criticizing the church in private.

IF Benedict goes to England, there are a lot of Irish living in the UK and coming over from Ireland who’ll be on hand to say hello. If I were Benedict, I would stay away.

 

[SunnaB16]

Catholics in official positions or who hold positions in Catholic organizations have a lot to lose by criticizing the church openly. But I will bet that a LOT of Catholics are criticizing the church in private.

It shows how little you know about a lot of those people. More than a few of them have been trying to bring the Church down for years; and theyve made little or no attempt to hatch their plots ***in ******private.*** Compared with this pope, Julius Caesars knife wounds were just s few scratches. Dissident “Catholics” are out in force, and they don`t care who knows it.
Catholics who have more than a scrap of faith can see through the demonically driven venomous ferocity of these blatantly lying attacks.

IF Benedict goes to England, there are a lot of Irish living in the UK and coming over from Ireland who’ll be on hand to say hello. If I were Benedict, I would stay away.

Thanks be to God, you`re NOT Benedict XVI.
A coward he is not!

 

[Teelynn]

Not even the gutter press can bring the Church down in the end. As for the Holy Father, he needs our prayers. They no doubt will twist and turn true facts into downright lies just to bump up ratings, and at the same time call for the Holy Father’s head on a platter, and bring down the Church that they so detest, but in the end the Church will prevail.

"YOU ARE PETER AND UPON THIS ROCK I SHALL BUILD MY CHURCH, AND THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST IT."

I do believe you can take that to the bank!

 

[Monte_RCMS]

I was surfing around and found this on a pdf document:

[Read the letters of St. Paul to the Corinthians!]

The fact is, Corinth was very far from being an “ideal
parish.” I recall Fr. Thomas Hopko once saying
something to the effect that Pilate got into the
Creed the same way that Corinth got into the Bible!
There has never been a “golden age” in which the
Church found itself living in peaceful serenity devoid
of tension and conflicts. And that is just as true of
the Apostolic Age as it is of the Church in the
contemporary world. Being pastoral, the Apostle
Paul realized that the Corinthians needed strong
and affirmative teaching in his correspondence with
them, a correspondence that was often filled with
chastisement and correction. At times, he was
clearly angry and employed more than a little bit of
calculated irony and even sarcasm. Is it any wonder
that he had more than his share of detractors and even enemies? Yet, he never lost sight of his
burning desire that the Christians of Corinth manifest the new life to which they were called and into
which they were baptized when they received the Gospel. For this reason, he labored and struggled
to properly articulate a sound understanding of such seemingly disparate themes as the resurrection
of the dead and a Christ-centered sexual morality. We can only believe him when he assured the
Corinthians that he wrote to them in tears, fearing for their salvation as he begged them to repent of
their sins. The apostle who himself was the astonished recipient of the unmerited forgiveness of God,
was convinced that the “grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of
the Holy Spirit” (II COR. 13:14) were able to transform a wayward community so that it would truly
be the “church of God” residing in Corinth - or Cincinnati, Dayton, Columbus, Chicago - or wherever
God is pleased to raise up a people to the glory of His Name.
Lack of Unity
There was a clear lack of unity in the Corinthian parish, a lack of unity that created a real factionalism
(I COR. 1:12). There was a developing spiritual elitism that led to unsound doctrinal speculation (I
COR. 1-4). There was the scandal of sexual immorality - incest and intercourse with prostitutes! (I
COR. 5-6) Disorder at the eucharistic assembly further troubled the community. Also, a profound
misunderstanding concerning the relationship of the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of
the dead (I COR. 15). Our own parishes are starting to look good at this point! Perhaps, according to
St. John Chrysostom, what ultimately was lacking in Corinth was a spirit of love, so beautifully
addressed by the Apostle Paul in his great hymn to love in I COR. 13. In a passage from his
commentary on I Corinthians, St. John summarizes the connection between a troubled community
and the missing ingredient of love in the following manner:
If love had been present, the Corinthians would not have been puffed up, they would not
have divided into factions, they would not have gone to law before the heathens, or indeed
at all. If there had been love in the church, that notorious person would not have taken his
father’s wife, they would not have looked down on their weaker brethren, and they would
not have boasted of their spiritual gifts.
(Homilies on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians 44.2)

 

[Monte_RCMS]

Finally, I heard one day a famous cardinal say at his daily Mass homily that if you think these problems are bad, meditate on the life of St. Athanasius.

He fought for 75 years against the heresy that Jesus wasn’t divine!

Read up on it.

Name your next boychild “Athanasius”!